Watch This Tesla Model 3 Child Car Seat Test

The Tesla Model 3 seems to be a reasonably sized vehicle for a small family. Despite exterior dimensions a foot shorter than the Model S, the vehicles front and rear legroom are nearly identical to the larger Model S. The Model 3 also has a bit more headroom when fitted with a glass ceiling. But shoulder/hip room is a few inches less than the Model S. Could this present a problem for bulky full-size child car seats?

In the video below, a dad borrows a Model 3 from a friend to test it out with his daughter’s child seat. Getting the seat in and latched seems simple enough based on the video. If you have 3 car seats/boosters, it might be a tight fit. But for one or two young children, the rear of the Model 3 provides plenty of room. In fact, there appears to still be enough space for 2 older kids as well.

Most importantly, dad points out that the car provides a very nice view for any rear seat passengers!

After a short drive in the car, the calm electric drive seems to lull his daughter to sleep. So I’d say that’s a thumbs up from the daughter and from the dad.

While I don’t have any kids or a Model 3 yet, I’d say it looks like a good family sedan. For any owners out there, how well do you find it works for your family? Is there enough passenger and cargo space to chauffeur your whole family in style?

Check out the video below:

Video Description via Bryce on YouTube:

Tesla Model 3 Child car seat review

I’d like to think my friend Colby for coming over and letting us take a ride in his Tesla. My daughter really enjoyed it and it was neat to see if the car seat would work in the back.

The video has almost nothing to do with the car seat install, but does have a dad recklessly driving with his hands off the wheel while videoing from the driver’s seat on a fairly busy road with potential of cross traffic that might not be detected by AP system, with his daughter in the back.

Really? I only saw about 30 seconds of footage showing autopilot performing exquisitely on a well-marked, lightly-travelled road with no cross traffic and he easily takes control after disengaging the system for a turn.

I am not complaining about AP, I am saying he shouldn’t be capturing video in that situation. He is treating AP as FSD, which it is not.

The road had numerous areas to the side that cars could enter from. Just in the 30 seconds or so he crossed at least a dozen points where a car could have pulled out or turned in front while he was too busy looking at his recording device.

Essentially what the Uber driver was doing when it hit the pedestrian. Completely irresponsible.

The road and situation he was in was entirely appropriate for autopilot. Throughout the capture, the car had full confidence in speed and lane-keeping and there were no pedestrians (or sidewalks for that matter) that I could see. He also seemed to be fully aware of his surroundings as he comments on the quality of how autopilot is handling the road and smoothly disengages it when he approaches his turn.

If a car randomly and dangerously pulled out into a street in front of him (which didn’t happen), autopilot would have warned the driver, slowed down, and/or applied the emergency braking system. It is one thing to say that he shouldn’t be recording during autopilot, which is true, but it is another to exaggerate about the situation or conflate it with unrelated situations. Autopilot clearly has issues, but it isn’t useless. To date, there are no reports of this generation of autopilot colliding with cross traffic.

1 fatality was attributed to cross traffic when it blasted through a truck. It is totally not appropriate to be taking a video in that situation.

The point is the driver needs to be watching for issues that the car isn’t. Not taking video. The 2 US fatalities were both very experienced with AP and had many hours getting to know the system very well. They both hit corner cases in software while ignoring driving responsibility.

AP is great, doesn’t mean you can ignore driving responsibilities. Videos like this lead to laws slowing down adoption of AP.

You’re wrong, I’m sorry. The truck crash occurred before the second generation of autopilot hardware was even revealed, much more programmed. Also, the driver is clearly aware of his surroundings and specifically comments on how the car is driving. It would be one thing if you wee claiming that the video showed an accident or a near accident, but if all you can point to is a single crash of a different vehicle in a different situation more than two years ago using a system developed by a third party, then you’re reaching.

I already said it’s wrong to record while driving, but if you’re really concerned with the adoption of this technology, you wouldn’t be bringing up the specter of a non-existent dangerous situation to try to discourage people from using it. The only take away from that segment of the video is that autopilot worked well because it did. The car drove perfectly and safely in the video and had full confidence in the location of the lanes.

Rear facing is the real test as it requires a lot more space, but is 5 times safer for toddlers.

Many US states recommend rear facing until 2 year old as the minimum, whereas many EU countries are already up to 4 years old minimum. All professional children’s orgs (such as American Pediatric Association) recommend you use rear facing as long as you can up to the rating of the seat. Also kids are very flexible and will sit in ways that look uncomfortable to adults with their legs crossed, etc.

Rear legroom numbers are often misleading as if the front seat is set for the driver it will be much less. Usually width is the problem to get rear facing as the seats interfere with each other in ways they shouldn’t.